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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

What's Fresh with Lola Douglas's More Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet

Hello, Lola, please tell us about your latest novel.

Lola: It's called MORE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET (Razorbill, 2006). Here's the blurb:

Just when Morgan Carter was falling in love with the simple life she'd built in Fort Wayne, Indiana, her true identity as an infamous Hollywood starlet was exposed. Now Morgan has a choice to make: return to her glamorous movie star existence--or stick with the wholesome life, and the new love, she's found in the Midwest.

The first book in the series, TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET (Razorbill, 2005), has also just come out in paperback.

Could you share a bit about the main character of your book and what makes her unique?

Lola: Morgan's so much fun to write. On the one hand, she's a rich, beautiful young woman who used to be considered America's Favorite Daughter. On the other, she's a has-been teen actress who almost died of a drug overdose and is now completely un-hirable. To complicate matters further, she's got this fiery restlessness that burns inside of her. She doesn't know what she wants - to be an actress? to be a normal teen? - and so she makes a lot of mistakes, a lot missteps. But she's also very kind and very loving - you root for her even when she's screwing things up in a big way.

How did the idea for this novel come about?

Lola: I wanted to write a diary-format novel, and I'd always had this fascination with Drew Barrymore. So, I put two and two together and voila!

What do you hope readers will gain from reading this novel?

Lola: I don't like to force messages through my fiction, but there are definitely themes in the book about perception versus reality - how people have this preconceived notion about who Morgan is, but how that's usually wrong - and also about finding inner strength.

Thanks for sharing, Lola! Would you like to close with a novel you highly recommend and why?

Lola: Thanks for having me! I recommend Alex Flinn's DIVA, which is about a girl who's chasing her dream of becoming an opera singer at a performing arts high school in Miami. Caitlin, the singer, is dealing with some demons from her past - an abusive ex-boyfriend, an overly critical mother, and her biggest enemy: herself. Such a good read!

When she was five, Lola Douglas wanted to be an actress like her then-hero, Drew Barrymore. Instead, she became a supermarket checkout girl, a video store clerk, an administrative assistant, a features reporter and a textbook development editor before deciding that writing teen novels was her real forte. Lola has lived in seven of our great United States, including Indiana, and says that during her five-and-a-half month stint in Fort Wayne no one ever forced her to see the movie Hoosiers. She was, however, coaxed into auditioning for a part as an extra in a Neil LaBute film (Your Friends and Neighbors, to be exact), but was rejected during the first round. When not watching too much reality television, reading Gawker, or obsessing over all things Marc Jacobs, Lola can be found working on her next super secret project, which will be published in 2008.

To this day, she remains fascinated with Drew Barrymore. Visit her website, www.loladouglas.com.